I certainly did not like some of the things that he said during his career. With that said, once I'd heard that he'd died, I'd expected some vile being thrown his way, but I did not expect what I'd been reading about via various blogs. Well, I'm not going to add to it. He'd suffered enough. Indtead, I'm going to say goodbye to him, and add condolences to his family. I think they are going to be needing it.

my initial reaction upon hearing the news on TV about two minutes ago was to think "Good riddance!" and wonder if he was finding out the hard way what God really thinks of holier-than-thou bigots (ie. if there's anything afterwards, which way he went)?

I'm not normally so uncharitable - but Falwell, Pat Robertson and their ilk are the sort of people who (as far as this agnostic's concerned) give Christianity a bad name.

I wasn't celebrating - but normally, I feel when someone dies that something has been taken away from humanity, and that's a pity. I just can't feel any sense of that in this case, because I can't think of anything to miss about him.

Logically, I know that he has a wife and children and they'll miss him. But I also look at articles on how those children've turned out and wonder what sort of legacy the blinkered old fool's leaving us - I'm not sure whether I'm pitying them or whoever they carry his messages on to...

I find it ironic how someone who spent his life bawling so hard about imposing his definition of "good" should produce such atypically unpleasant thoughts from people who would normally consider themselves fair, moral and compassionate.

Given the state of the US and the amount of prescriptivism in the media at the moment (or at least, the bits of it that get this far), I think that I'll be keeping an eye for a few days on World News Tonight, CBS, NBC and the other networks that're actually screened over here - I've a sense of morbid curiosity as to how this is going to be covered in the mass media.

How many days do you give before Fox mauls The New York Times for not recommending the guy for canonisation?

Although I think that I'll be staying away from the channel over here that screens The 700 Club (yes, we have one) - I'm curious, not flat out masochistic. :-/